An update on the band’s 8th studio album.

If I didn’t have football I’d be a dead man. Actually, that’s not true, but the quality of my life would be deeply diminished. I still think of the week as being divided up like the academic periods of secondary school. On a normal week,therefore, my Tuesdays and Thursday’s are glorious. No maths, no science, just coffee, girls, boys and football.

If only the rest of the week came up to such longed-for standards of action, scraps, intrigues, gossip, revelation, and physical sensation.

That’s growing up for you though. I feel like I have God for a pal because no one else would have me. Maybe that’s the basis for a lot of religion. He’s the invisible friend that it’s ok to have as an adult.

I’m sat here on the bleakest of days. Scotland is showing why it has nothing to rival it in terms of wind power. It’s the sort of day that you could catch cold running between the kitchen and the bathroom.

I am an individual, a citizen. I queue at banks and hang my socks on the radiator. I recycle, and sit on residents’ commitees. I don’t feel like I’m in a band or anything. It feels like a long time ago.

Swinging into the third year of kitchen dwelling, I am pricked constantly with the feeling of ‘get on with it’. I’ve put the film to one side for the minute, and I know that I need to get this music out or else its promise will fade.

I’m aiming to master all the “God Help The Girl” songs by the end of November. I think there are 18 of them. It’s a good feeling to think about making records. Sleeves and schedules, running orders and what not. It’s been so long since I did it that, I suspect the landscape has changed.

Do you get the same thrill when you look forward to a record coming out? I suppose I must ask the youngsters among you, because age dulls most thrills. But youngsters, where are your thrills coming from? Do you desire the sensation that is the Long Playing Record. Does pop music teach you and hold you and thrill you the way it used to? The way it did to us?